It’s been quite a while since we last reviewed any Vivani Chocolate – so long in fact, that they emailed us to tell us that they don’t actually make the last chocolate we reviewed any more.
Luck for us, Vivani’s way of rectifying this situation was to send us a big box of new bars to write about.
So without further ado, here’s some of the highlights of the selection they sent us, starting with two single origin bars.
50% Dominican Republic Dark Milk
It’s not often you find single origin milk chocolates at Vivani’s pricepoint (under £2.50 per 100g bar), so I was intrigued to try it. Unusually, it’s made with coconut blossom sugar rather than cane sugar, along with both milk and cream powder.
It has a soft texture and a flavour that’s chocolatey, if perhaps a little too roasted. It’s not particularly complex, and the flavour of the cream is also quite prominent. As a result, it wasn’t really my cup of tea.
Panaman 92%
Another bar sweetened with coconut blossom sugar. This time though, there’s only three ingredients (cocoa mass and cocoa butter being the other two). One thing’s clear from the start with this bar – there’s quite a lot of cooca butter in it. The flavour is intense, but ultimately very approachable of really quite tasty. As with the milk chocolate bar, it’s not particularly complex, but there is a hint of fruit in the background. It’s a much better bar than the milk and one I found very enjoyable.
70% Ecuador With Cranberry
Our last single origin bar is made with Ecuadorian cocoa, conventional cane sugar and tiny pieces of cranberry. I’ve always been a big fan of fruity chocolate, and I found this bar particularly easy to munch on.
As with the 92% bar, it’s quite high in cocoa butter, meaning it’s not overly intense. But neither is it too sweet. All in all another very enjoyable bar.
Marzipan Amaretto
The rest of the Vivani bars have a slightly chunkier format and more sugar. This one comes in at 60% cocoa solids, and the thick chunks are filled with a gooey, sticky, marzipan-like substance that’s much closer to the German confectionery version of marzipan than anything I’ve experienced elsewhere. It’s too sweet and too soft for me, but those with a very sweet tooth might like it. And Germans.
40% Rice Milk Chocolate
According to the wrapper, this chocolate is made with “organic rice drink powder”. That might seem a little odd, but it really translates as “rice milk chocolate” – a milk chocolate made without dairy. That’s important, because it means that it can be enjoyed by the millions of people who for whatever reason can’t have dairy.
I recently reviewed an Almond Milk Chocolate from Artisan du Chocolat that was aimed at the same (very large) market, so it’s great to see more milk chocolate alternatives becoming available.
The flavour is quite pleasant, and there’s certainly a hint of cereal in there. I don’t know that I would eat it regularly, but as a milk chocolate substitute, I found it more than acceptable.
Finally, we have a range of smaller format 40g bars.
Black Cherry
This 62% dark chocolate with small pieces of black cherry, is quite addictive, so it’s probably good it comes in a small format. The chocolate dark chocolate is relatively sweet, but works very well with the sour cherries that cut through the sweetness just enough.
Creamy Caramel
A 35% milk chocolate with “creamy caramel” filling. I’m not much of fan of long shelf life caramels as they tend to be full of preservatives, and I have to say this wasn’t my thing. The milk chocolate is sweet, but the filling is insanely sweet and buttery. Probably my least favourite of the whole selection.
Espresso Biscotti
The description on the wrapper – “dark milk chocolate with a crispy espresso cream filling” – sums this up quite well, although at 32% cocoa solids it’s not particularly dark. It’s still too sweet for my personal taste, but the combination of coffee and biscuity crunch do work quite well together.
Mandel Orange
Finally, we have another bar featuring the rice milk chocolate – this time, with small pieces of “granulated orange”. The result is a flavour similar to (but perhaps a little better than) a Terry’s Chocolate Orange – but importantly in a chocolate that’s suitable for those who can’t have dairy. Again, not really my thing, but I know plenty of people who would like it, simply because it’s one of the few milk chocolates they can eat.
All in all, Vivani have a good selection of bars, especially considering the price point. I would put them in the same kind of category as Lindt, but actually rate the chocolate a little higher. The 92% bar is particularly approachable, and if you have any kind of dairy allergy, the rice milk chocolates are worth seeking out too.
Information
- Buy it online from:
- Contains dark chocolate, milk chocolate, other types, white chocolate (32, 40, 50, 62, 70, 92% cocoa solids).
- Cacao Origin: Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Panama
- Filed under cherry, cranberry, germany, organic, vivani.
This is one of a stack of bars I bought following our recent trip to the Zotter chocolate factory in Austria. With a huge shop, packed with hundreds of different products, it’s difficult to know where to start, so along with the selection of pralines, I just picked up a few of these “Hand Scooped” bars and a few from the “Labooko” range of solid bars.
The Hand Scooped range was my first introduction to Zotter back in 2010, when I looked at the rather odd Bacon Bits bar. This time I chose something a little more down to earth – Zotter Balsamic Orange bar is made with orange and balsamic vinegar.
In this case, the filling is made into a smooth ganache that’s really rather tasty. It’s made with orange concentrate, apple balsamic vinegar and grappa and has a good balance of chocolate, orange and acidity from the vinegar.
The entire bar is wrapped in a thin layer of Zotter’s 40% bean-to-bar “Mountain Milk” chocolate. It’s very nice, but with such a thin layer, it doesn’t bring a lot to the party. As with most of the Hand Scooped range, this is all about the filling.
I found this bar all to easy to eat. The texture is light enough that it’s almost like eating a piece of chocolate cake rather than a chocolate bar, and consequently it disappeared a little too quickly.
Of course, there are many people who simply don’t like the combination of chocolate and orange – or have had their tastebuds forever tainted by the Terry’s Chocolate Orange. Personally, I liked this a lot. It’s obviously not the most refined chocolate experience, but in terms of quality and flavour, it’s a huge step up from your average confectionery chocolate bar.
As you might imagine, I get offered all kinds of chocolate related products for review here, but with limited time I have to turn many offers that don’t fit into the usual “bars or truffles” categories down. This one, however, caught my attention.
What I wasn’t expecting was for the PR company to send me three boxes of these Yoosli Chocolate & Berry Clusters! So after putting aside a box for myself, I took the rest in to work for my colleagues (or “tasting panel” as they like to call themselves) to try.
The very next day I was informed that Yoosli was “amazing”, “addictive” and “awesome”. But not as a healthy breakfast – as a late night snack, eaten straight out of the box.
It quickly became clear that I was going to have to do things properly.
It turns out that when consumed with a little milk and/or natural yoghurt, they’re equally good. The clusters have a great crunch and a nice balance between the chocolate and berry flavours. Most importantly of all, grown up Cocoa Pops lovers will be glad to know they even turn the milk chocolatey.
I have to confess, I’m not normally a breakfast person. It’s been quite a while since I’ve had any breakfast cereal (at least any that doesn’t come in a handy bar format), but I’ve been rather taken with my Yoosli. My 500g box is now almost gone, and I’m starting to regret giving the other two boxes away.
If I have one reservation, it’s that a quick glance at the ingredients does reveal “non hydrogenated palm oil” fairly high up on the list. I’m sure it’s necessary for holding the clusters together or something, but it’s something I would rather not be consuming.
But that really is the only downside I can find to what a very tasty breakfast cereal – and late night snack.
If you’re familiar with Zotter Chocolate, you’ll probably know that the Austrian bean-to-bar chocolate maker is most widely known for its weird and wonderfully flavoured bars. But you might not know that they also make a range of pralines and truffles.
I picked this box of 16 chocolates at the Zotter factory shop (more on that soon!), but you can also buy a selection online. The main advantage of buying from the physical shop is that you can pick the chocolates you want from the extensive selection and design your own box.
The thing I noticed when buying these is that there’s quite a lot of crossover between the flavours here and Zotter’s Hand Scooped and Mitzi Blue ranges. For many of the chocolates in this range, what you’re getting is mini versions of the bigger bars.
I had thought I was being quite restrained only buying 16, but that’s too many to write about individually, so instead I just want to talk about some of the highlights in my own box. It’s a box that I picked out from my own personal preferences, so it’s perfectly possible I’ve missed out on something amazing. Next time I’ll just have to buy a bigger box.
Limoncello
A soft and creamy white chocolate ganache covered in a thin layer of white chocolate. As ganaches go, this is quite thick, but it’s very smooth and has a wonderful citrus burst with a gentle alcoholic kick.
Johannisbeere Kugel (Blackcurrant Ball)
A dark chocolate truffle ball with an intensely zingy blackcurrant flavour. If you love fruit flavour chocolates as much as I do, this one will really hit the spot.
HaselnussNougat Dunkel (Dark Hazelnut Nougat)
A simple, delicious hazelnut nougat square, decorated with blue flowers – similar to Zotter’s Mitsy Blue range. I love the nougat, but I did find the flowers stuck in my teeth a little!
KaramelNougat
A caramel nougat in a very thin layer of caramel white chocolate. This replicates one of Zotter’s Hand Scooped bars, but actually works better in this smaller format. It’s sweet, with a pleasant crunch and a very nice biscuity, caramel flavour.
Rum In Kokos (Rum In Coconut)
A milk chocolate square with a white chocolate, rum and coconut filling. Although a little sweet, I liked it because it’s a bit like a grown up Bounty. Or Malibu in chocolate form.
KirschMarzipan (Cherry Marzipan)
A double layered square chocolate with a layer of soft marzipan sat on top of a cherry jelly. I loved the contrast in textures in this chocolate. The cherry layer has an unusual chewy, foamy texture and the marzipan practically melts in the mouth.
Overall, it’s an interesting and unique approach to truffles and pralines that I’m very glad to have sampled. Personally I still prefer the bars (particularly the solid, single origin Labooko range), but these still make a great gift – and something a little different from your average box of chocolate.
I still have petals in my teeth though.
